WMT - Walmart Inc.
111.41 +0.17 (0.15%)
After hours: 4:26PM EDT
| Previous Close | 111.13 |
| Open | 111.49 |
| Bid | 111.29 x 1200 |
| Ask | 111.30 x 800 |
| Day's Range | 111.03 - 112.22 |
| 52 Week Range | 83.40 - 112.22 |
| Volume | 5,178,045 |
| Avg. Volume | 6,252,785 |
| Market Cap | 317.559B |
| Beta (3Y Monthly) | 0.62 |
| PE Ratio (TTM) | 38.92 |
| EPS (TTM) | 2.86 |
| Earnings Date | Aug 15, 2019 |
| Forward Dividend & Yield | 2.12 (1.91%) |
| Ex-Dividend Date | 2019-08-08 |
| 1y Target Est | 110.54 |
- Yahoo Finance•4 hours ago
Business owner to Trump: Drop the tariffs
CEO behind Star Wars night-lights calls tariffs devastating and urges President Trump to back down
- TechCrunch•5 hours ago
Sam's Club launches alcohol delivery through Instacart
Walmart -owned Sam's Club is expanding into same-day alcohol delivery, theretailer announced this morning
- Investor's Business Daily•2 hours ago
Amazon, 2 Dow Stocks Among Retail Stocks Near Record Highs
In a tale of two ETFs focused on retail stocks, one is up 16% this year and near new highs, while the other is up 2% and 20% off its high. Why the sharp divergence?
- Bloomberg•3 hours ago
Amazon Threat to FedEx Is No Longer ‘Fantastical’
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- FedEx Corp. may finally be waking up to the threat Amazon.com Inc. poses to its business model.The logistics company is offering big discounts to help fill the planes in its Express delivery network with more e-commerce shipments, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited people familiar with the matter. The deals are being used to woo customers away from rival United Parcel Service Inc., or to convince them to switch from FedEx’s cheaper ground offerings, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. For some customers, shipping goods via FedEx’s two-day air service may now cost about the same as shipping them through the ground division.(1)A FedEx spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal that the company hasn't changed its pricing strategy, adding that the two-day Express service “has been very successful and continues to deliver tremendous value to small and medium businesses competing in the e-commerce market.” Reports of the discounts come just weeks after FedEx said its domestic Express air-delivery unit was dropping Amazon as a customer to focus on "serving the broader e-commerce market." FedEx dropped Amazon as a customer for its Express air-delivery unit to focus on “serving the broader e-commerce market.” The charitable interpretation of that move is that FedEx had found a bit of backbone and was holding a firmer line on pricing with Amazon in an effort to bolster its profit margins. The other possibility is that FedEx recognized that Amazon’s efforts to bring more of its logistics operations in house were real, and that it may want to start the process of breaking up with Amazon before Amazon decides to break up with it. While FedEx CEO Fred Smith has repeatedly painted any notion of Amazon disrupting the logistics industry as “fantastical,” his actions increasingly suggest otherwise. The share of capacity devoted to the time-sensitive legal documents and medical supplies that the FedEx Express network was originally built for will likely continue to shrink. But it’s uneconomical for the division’s fleet – which numbered 670 leased and owned planes at the end of 2018 – to fly partially full or not at all. Meanwhile, FedEx expects U.S. e-commerce demand to grow to 100 million packages per day by 2026. It’s been adamant that Amazon only directly accounts for a small percentage of its overall sales. But Amazon has forever changed the world’s expectations around shopping and delivery. So whether or not its own sales are in the mix, FedEx will be forced to drink more deeply from the firehose of e-commerce shipments to keep its network humming along. And that will come at a cost to margins.FedEx’s decision to prioritize shipments from the likes of Walmart Inc., Target Corp. and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. gave some analysts hope that it would deliver a greater share of packages to higher-paying business customers and add more density to its delivery routes. But there’s some debate as to whether the Express air-delivery unit as currently constituted still makes sense. Amazon relies on a network of fulfillment and sorting centers close to metropolitan areas to rapidly complete and ship orders, a model that many rival retailers are mimicking in some shape or form as they try to stay competitive. If you’re only going to deliver a package 25 or 50 miles, you’re not going to use a plane to do that. Indeed, when FedEx’s decision to drop Amazon as a U.S. Express customer was first announced, Seaport Global Holdings analyst Kevin Sterling wondered to Bloomberg News whether it was a precursor to the Express unit eventually fading out.Planes still have a role to play: Amazon last week announced an agreement to lease 15 additional Boeing Co. 737-800 converted freighters from General Electric Co.’s jet-lessor arm, adding to an existing agreement for five planes. But FedEx’s reported need to offer discounts to keep the planes it has full calls into question the company’s decision to devote a significant amount of its capital expenditure budget to refreshing its airplane fleet. Management has been clear it’s not expanding capacity at the Express unit, but rather replacing its planes with more efficient options to improve productivity and costs. Downsizing the fleet and reallocating those resources could be a smarter move. The reported pricing cuts – coupled with FedEx’s recently announced plan to offer delivery seven days a week by 2020 and add a fleet of flexible, part-time drivers – reinforce a point both I and my colleague Shira Ovide have long argued: Amazon doesn’t need to steal customers away from FedEx and UPS en masse to be a threat. It’s already forcing both companies to rethink the way they operate. The revenue lost from removing Amazon as an Express customer is relatively minor, but the world the e-commerce giant has created isn’t a hospitable one for the package-delivery incumbents’ profit margins and capital-spending budgets. (1) News of the discounts weighed on shares Monday, as did a separate shipping issue: FedExhad to issue a second apology to Huawei Technologies over the misrouting of packages, and some reports indicate China is contemplating black-listing it.To contact the author of this story: Brooke Sutherland at bsutherland7@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Beth Williams at bewilliams@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Brooke Sutherland is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering deals and industrial companies. She previously wrote an M&A column for Bloomberg News.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- TheStreet.com•3 hours ago
Carrefour Beats Retreat in China, Following Walmart and Tesco
After a quarter of a century selling groceries in China, Carrefour is beating a retreat. The deal leaves Carrefour with an interest in China without having to do any of the heavy lifting. Carrefour China currently operates 210 hypermarkets and 24 convenience stores, although its €4.1 billion (US$4.7 billion) in sales last year were down 5.9%.
- Bloomberg•4 hours ago
Amazon’s Merchants Are Feeling the Pain of a Trade War With China
(Bloomberg) -- Over the past several years, Shanghai entrepreneur Yung Lin has built a decent business selling wrenches, screwdrivers and other tools on Amazon.com. Then President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on thousands of goods made in China, and Lin faced a difficult choice: eat the additional cost or try and pass it onto his mostly American customers. He chose to raise prices and watched sales of some products dive by as much as one third in just two weeks. Amazon.com Inc. merchants around the world are scrambling to navigate an unpredictable trade war that’s upending their proven business model of buying inexpensive goods in China and selling them at a markup in the U.S. The problem is particularly acute now as Trump weighs another $300 billion worth of tariffs, many on consumer goods.Mom and pop sellers won’t be able to wait for Trump’s decision: They have to place factory orders now and figure out pricing if they want to get their goods made in time for the lucrative Christmas shopping season, when they make as much as half their annual revenue. The most obvious solutions—raising prices, shifting production to other countries, stockpiling inventory—all have costs and complications of their own.These businesses—many of them one-person shops—are especially vulnerable because they lack big companies’ wherewithal to ride out the uncertainty as well as the negotiating power to shift tariff costs onto their suppliers. “The smaller companies have a significant problem,” says Joel Sutherland, Managing Director of the Supply Chain Management Institute at the University of San Diego. “We have an administration that says one thing today and does something else tomorrow, which poses tremendous risks.”Amazon is more insulated than the merchants in the near term but it too could take a hit if sales slow and cut into the commissions and fees the company charges merchants to use its online store. The shares were down less than 1 percent at 12:08 p.m. in New York.Much depends on whether the U.S. and China can come to terms. Trump will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping for the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 28-29, and both sides have agreed to resume trade talks after a weeks-long stalemate. But even if they hammer out an agreement, the trading relationship between the world’s two largest economies probably will never be the same.“We’re going to assume the tariffs are here to stay,” says Chuck Gregorich, who sells China-made hammocks, patio furniture and 2,000 other products on Amazon. “We can’t have this happen in a year or two and get caught with our pants down again.”Like many other importers, Gregorich tried to move up orders early last year to beat a Jan. 1 tariff hike on Chinese imports from 10% to 25%. He wound up spending an extra $400,000 on shipping only to see the tariff hike delayed. Burned once by the guessing game, Gregorich is looking to shift about 30% of his production to factories in Vietnam and elsewhere. He’s not alone. Many other Amazon merchants are considering having their goods made in India, Southeast Asia and Central America. Michael Michelini relocated to China from New York in 2007 to make Italian coffee presses and upscale bar supplies for U.S shoppers. Eight months ago he decided to move with his wife and kids to Thailand, where he’s working with a new factory to develop a line of high-end kitchenware. “Now when I think of China, I think of risk,” he says.Moving isn’t easy, however. Merchants say finding the right factory, securing raw materials and conducting product quality testing can easily eat up a year. Jerry Kavesh sells cowboys boots and hats on Amazon and recently spent months locating a factory in India that could make his products. But Kavesh discovered he would still have to import raw materials from China, negating any advantage. So as a last resort, he’s cutting his holiday inventory by about 15% and raising prices by about 12%, which he figures will spook enough customers to hurt sales.“When I hear the [U.S.] administration say just move, that's just not realistic,” says Kavesh, the chief executive officer of 3P Marketplace Solutions. “You can’t just suddenly turn all of your production over to someone new.”Even as U.S. sellers try to diversify their manufacturing base, their Chinese counterparts are looking for new customers in Europe, Japan and Australia to offset the potential hit to their U.S. business. “If you are a Chinese seller, money is money,” says Eddie Deng, a former Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. strategist who now runs an online clothing brand called Urbanic that sells Chinese-made, Western-style clothing in India. “It doesn't matter if it's from the U.S., India or the Middle East.”Amazon has said little publicly about the trade war. It wasn’t among 600 businesses including Walmart and Target that wrote the Trump administration earlier this month seeking an end to the trade war because it’s bad for U.S. shoppers. Amazon is a member of the Internet Association trade group, which signed the letter.Behind the scenes, Amazon has agreed to pay some vendors up to 10% more for products affected by tariffs, according to two people familiar with the matter. “Companies of all sizes throughout the supply chain are adjusting to increased costs resulting from new tariffs,” Amazon said in an emailed statement. “We’re working closely with vendors to make this adjustment as smooth as possible.”But that help will apply only to products Amazon buys wholesale and resells itself. The mom and pops that sell directly to consumers on Amazon’s marketplace are on their own.The hardest part is the uncertainty—the temptation to parse Trump tweets in a mostly vain effort to divine the future. “This could all be a head fake,” says Steve Simonson, who sells Chinese-made home goods and electronics and has been scouting factories in India, Vietnam and Central America. “In two months, this could all go away and all of this time and work will be wasted.”(Updates with share price. A previous version of this story corrected name of university in the fourth paragraph.)To contact the authors of this story: Shelly Banjo in Hong Kong at sbanjo@bloomberg.netSpencer Soper in Seattle at ssoper@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Robin Ajello at rajello@bloomberg.net, Edwin ChanFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Motley Fool•5 hours ago
Stock Market News: Caesars Wins Big; Walmart Gets Sued
Stocks were mixed on Monday morning.
- MarketWatch•5 hours ago
Walmart's Sam's Club is now delivering alcohol via Instacart in select markets
Walmart Inc.'s Sam's Club is now delivering alcohol, including wine, beer and spirits, via Instacart in select markets across states, including Florida, California and Missouri, the company said Monday. Consumers can get same-day delivery of alcohol alongside their groceries with plans to expand the service to additional locations in the coming months. Walmart shares were up 0.2% Monday, and hae gained 19.5% in 2019 to date, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average , which counts Walmart as a member, has gained 15% and the S&P 500 has gained 18%.
- Benzinga•5 hours ago
Today's Pickup: Standing Out As A Shipper Of Choice; Underestimate Walmart At Your Own Risk
California Governor Gavin Newsom has proposed $24 billion in across-the-board transport spending for the state's 2019-20 fiscal year, a 6 percent increase. "If any retailer will win any logistics race it will be Walmart Inc (NYSE: WMT).
- Barrons.com•6 hours ago
Walmart Is Fighting Back Against Amazon.com in the Battle for Your Grocery Dollars
Amazon had been ”chipping away at Walmart’s pricing advantage” in groceries, but Walmart has started to reverse that, one analyst says.
- Reuters•6 hours ago
UPDATE 2-JetBlue sues Walmart for trademark infringement over Jetblack service
JetBlue Airways Corp has sued Walmart Inc for trademark infringement, in an effort to stop the world's largest retailer from using the name Jetblack for its text-based personal shopping service. In a complaint filed on Friday night, JetBlue said Jetblack was a "transparent attempt" by Walmart to capitalize on the carrier's goodwill, and would likely cause "significant consumer confusion" as the service expands across the United States. JetBlue also said Walmart intended further infringements by using other "Jet+color" names such as Jetgold and Jetsilver, and moving closer to JetBlue's core business by offering travel services, including dining and entertainment recommendations.
- Zacks•6 hours ago
Target Displays Solid 6-Month Run-Up, Adds More Than 40%
Target (TGT) has taken steps that have improved prospects in a big way. The company's initiatives such as omni-channel capacities and emphasis on flexible format stores bode well.
- Reuters•7 hours ago
JetBlue sues Walmart for trademark infringement over Jetblack service
JetBlue Airways Corp has sued Walmart Inc for trademark infringement, in an effort to stop the world's largest retailer from using the name Jetblack for its text-based personal shopping service. In a complaint filed on Friday night, JetBlue said Jetblack was a "transparent attempt" by Walmart to capitalize on the carrier's goodwill, and would likely cause "significant consumer confusion" as the service expands across the United States. JetBlue also said Walmart intended further infringements by using other "Jet+color" names such as Jetgold and Jetsilver, and moving closer to JetBlue's core business by offering travel services, including dining and entertainment recommendations.
- Zacks•7 hours ago
IMKTA vs. WMT: Which Stock Is the Better Value Option?
IMKTA vs. WMT: Which Stock Is the Better Value Option?
- MarketWatch•10 hours ago
Trump should hang tough against China
Americans should be prepared for President Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods to become permanent and to disengage from China completely, writes Peter Morici.
- Bloomberg•13 hours ago
Carrefour Sells Control of China Business at a Discount
(Bloomberg) -- Carrefour SA has agreed to sell an 80% stake in its China unit for 4.8 billion yuan ($698 million) in cash to local retailer Suning.com Co. as it rethinks its exposure in the world’s No. 2 economy after years of decline.The yielding of control comes after a long search for a partner for the French company’s struggling Chinese operations. Once the premier foreign supermarket chain locally, it failed to adjust to the onslaught of e-commerce in recent years and sales slumped.The shares rose as much as 2.9% early Monday in Paris.Carrefour will retain a 20% stake in the China business, which generated net sales of 3.6 billion euros (28.5 billion yuan) in 2018. It will also get two seats out of seven on the China unit’s Supervisory Board, according to a statement Sunday. The valuation of Carrefour’s China unit at 0.2 times its 2018 sales -- compared to an industry average of 0.8 times -- is at a “significant discount to peers likely due to poor financial results,” said Citigroup Inc. analysts led by Lydia Ling in a note Monday.“The consolidation in store network, supply chain, logistics and membership could improve efficiency and profitability for both parties,” said the Citi note.A growing number of European and American retailers are either scaling back their presence or tying up with local partners in order to stay competitive in China, where e-commerce penetration is one of the highest globally. Walmart Inc., which has a network of around 400 supermarkets, relies on JD.com Inc. for its delivery service, while Germany’s Metro AG is said to be trying to offload a majority stake in its Chinese business.“The big problem for Carrefour and other western grocery chains is that they have major challenges in their home countries and can’t afford to grow in China,” said Pascal Martin, a Hong Kong-based partner at OC&C Strategy Consultants. “In China, if you want to grow in the groceries space, you have to continue to invest capital in less developed cities.”End of an EraIt’s the end of an era for one of the first foreign brands to gain a loyal following among Chinese consumers. Carrefour entered the country in 1995, ahead of Walmart, and its massive hypermarkets where one could buy fresh pork along with a TV ushered in a new style of shopping for a country just opening up to the outside world.But it has struggled to maintain profitability as buyers moved online rapidly in recent years, a shift that’s favored home-grown giants like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Despite efforts to digitize its operations, and an initiative to rent out store space to local retailer Gome Retail Holdings, Carrefour’s China sales declined about 10 percent last year to 3.6 billion euros, according to the company’s annual report.Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization were 66 million euros or 516 million yuan last year. It operates 210 hypermarkets and 24 convenience stores in China currently.The transaction represents an enterprise value of 1.4 billion euros ($1.6 billion) for Carrefour China. For Nanjing-based Suning, primarily an electronics retailer, the deal will help it cut procurement and logistics costs and boost profitability, the company said in a statement Sunday. Its Shenzhen-listed shares rose as much as 6.5% in early trading on Monday as investors rewarded the retailer for closing the deal at a low price.Alibaba holds a 20% stake in Suning and the two companies are closely allied. They’ve been investing in brick-and-mortar retailers with the goal of building an empire where offline and online shopping are seamlessly integrated. Earlier this year, Suning bought 37 department stores from Wanda Group, while Alibaba paid $2.9 billion in 2017 for a 36% stake in Sun Art Retail Group Ltd., China’s biggest supermarket chain. The Carrefour deal is likely to strengthen Alibaba’s foothold in the fiercely competitive groceries market in China.The acquisition has been cleared by Carrefour’s board and is expected to close by year end, but still needs approval from the Chinese regulator, said the companies.Carrefour’s decision to retain a 20% holding shows how China remains a strategic market for global retailers. Keeping that stake will allow it to maintain a foothold in an innovative retail market, a company spokeswoman said Sunday.(Updates with shares in third paragraph.)\--With assistance from Robert Williams.To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Geraldine Amiel in Paris at gamiel@bloomberg.net;Daniela Wei in Hong Kong at jwei74@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Rachel Chang at wchang98@bloomberg.net, Bhuma ShrivastavaFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg•yesterday
Banks Stay on Sidelines for Facebook Coin After Apple Pay Struggle
(Bloomberg) -- U.S. banks might be happy to stay away from Facebook Inc.’s push into cryptocurrencies. For now.The Libra Association, the governing body for the coin, is in talks with lenders around the world to join its ranks. Banks are mostly keeping their distance after seeing tepid consumer reaction to digital wallets such as Apple Pay and regulatory scrutiny of digital currencies.“If Facebook is able to create mass adoption on this platform, then banks will want in,” David Donovan, who leads the global financial-services consulting practice at Publicis Sapient, said in a phone interview. “There’s a business decision they have to make. Facebook is saying the market is not being served well.”Banks were absent when Facebook announced Libra last week, saying that more than two dozen other companies, including payment networks Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc., joined the project. The social-media giant said Libra will be backed by fiat currencies to provide payment services to the 1.7 billion people worldwide without easy access to banking.Facebook and its 2.4 billion active users are hard for the largest U.S. banks to ignore -- and Citigroup Inc.’s Michael Corbat has said his firm would consider joining Libra if asked. But it’s not the first time a technology giant promised sweeping changes to the payments world.Apple Inc. introduced Apple Pay in 2014 to much fanfare. Banks spent millions promoting the service and created card rewards tied to customer use of the product. In a sign of how eager they were, banks even gave Apple a cut of the coveted interchange fees they earn from each swipe of a card.But five years in, Apple Pay has struggled to take off. Large retailers including Walmart Inc. have been hesitant to accept the technology. And while consumers spent roughly $3 trillion using digital wallets in 2018, almost two-thirds of that spending occurred in China where apps like Alipay and WeChat Pay dominate commerce, according to a report from Juniper Research.“Advanced payment methods haven’t really taken hold unless they’re mandated,” Tim Spenny, a senior vice president at market researcher Magid who has consulted for Facebook and Visa, said in an interview. For him, the question is: “What is the use case or what is the pain point that would cause people to say ‘Hey, I’m going to put money into a cryptocurrency to start paying for things.’”After years spent trying to promote Apple Pay, U.S. banks turned their attention to tap-to-pay cards, which use the same technology while keeping the familiar card product. It’s a recipe that’s worked for JPMorgan Chase & Co. customers.“There’s a big segment that never used mobile wallets, but the moment they got their contactless cards, they’re starting to tap right away,” Abeer Bhatia, president of card marketing, pricing and innovation for the bank, said in an interview last month. “When they have the choice to use either, they’re overwhelmingly using tap-to-pay.”Banks have been conducting their own experiments with cryptocurrencies, such as JPMorgan’s JPM Coin, which is meant to speed up corporate payments. The largest U.S. lenders have also promoted a new real-time payments service spearheaded by The Clearing House.Regulatory ResponseThere have been cases where startups were assessed for compliance lapses. And Libra’s debut drew attention from regulators, as members of the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee promised hearings on the digital coin and its governance.John Smith, who used to lead the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, said tech companies and the banks they work with “will be held accountable” if they violate the law.“There’s a view within the fintechs that, ‘We couldn’t possibly do the rules that big banks do because we’re trying to be quick,’” Smith, co-head of Morrison & Foerster’s national security law practice, said Friday at a conference. “There’s going to be a rude awakening.”\--With assistance from Lananh Nguyen, Michelle F. Davis and Kurt Wagner.To contact the reporter on this story: Jenny Surane in New York at jsurane4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Dan Reichl, Daniel TaubFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Motley Fool•yesterday
Why FedEx and Amazon Are Breaking Up
FedEx is calling it off, which speaks to a brighter future for FedEx than you might think.
- Motley Fool•3 days ago
Here's Where Amazon and Walmart Differ on In-Home Delivery
Walmart tries to allay customer worries with tweaks that separate it from Amazon Key.
- Zacks•3 days ago
Walmart (WMT) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know
In the latest trading session, Walmart (WMT) closed at $111.11, marking a +0.72% move from the previous day.
- Motley Fool•3 days ago
Is Kroger a Value Play or a Falling Knife?
America’s largest supermarket chain is a retail survivor -- but it still has a lot to prove.
- Bloomberg•3 days ago
Oracle Women Fight for Class-Action Status in Gender Pay Lawsuit
(Bloomberg) -- Call it the class ceiling.Women suing major technology companies for gender discrimination would have much stronger leverage against their employers if they could press their claims on behalf of a large group of female colleagues. But last year, the first two cases to reach that critical juncture -- against Microsoft Corp. and Twitter Inc. -- failed to advance as class actions.Now three women at Oracle Corp. are trying to persuade a state court to let them represent more than 4,000 peers in a case claiming that the database giant pays men better for doing the same jobs, in violation of California’s Equal Pay Act. They were to make their case Friday, but the judge postponed it to September after a brief hearing.It won’t be easy because the U.S. Supreme Court set a high bar for employment discrimination cases to win class-action status in a 2011 decision that blocked 1.5 million female workers at Walmart Inc. from pursuing their gender-bias claims as a group. The barriers imposed by the high court played into the Twitter and Microsoft rulings, both of which are being appealed.The case against Oracle was filed by former company engineer Sue Petersen and two other women, all of whom worked at PeopleSoft Corp. before it was acquired by Oracle in 2005.The women allege that Oracle for years has paid women less than men for “substantially similar work, when viewed as a composite of skill, effort, and responsibility, and performed under similar working conditions.” To bolster their bid for class-action status, the plaintiffs emphasize that company-wide compensation is determined at Oracle’s headquarters in Redwood Shores, California.Wrong ComparisonOracle contends the lawsuit wrongly compares women and men tagged with the same job codes even though such coding doesn’t mean the work requires similar skills, effort or responsibility, because Oracle’s products and services vary so widely.Relying on the codes doesn’t “account for the tools or programming languages an employee must master, the hours her work requires, or the number and complexity of the sub-areas of a product for which she is responsible,” the company said in a court filing.Dorian Daley, Oracle executive vice president and general counsel, said in an emailed statement that the lawsuit was “meritless,” based on false allegations and relies “on cherry picked statistics rather than reality. We fiercely disagree with the spurious claims and will continue in the process to prove them false. We are in compliance with our regulatory obligations, committed to equality, and proud of our employees.”Oracle is also fighting a case over gender-pay disparities brought by the U.S. Labor Department in the waning days of the Obama administration.The case is Jewett v. Oracle America Inc., 17-CIV-02669, California Superior Court, County of San Mateo (Redwood City).(Updates with Oracle statement.)\--With assistance from Nico Grant and Robert Burnson.To contact the reporters on this story: Peter Blumberg in San Francisco at pblumberg1@bloomberg.net;Joel Rosenblatt in San Francisco at jrosenblatt@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Steve Stroth, Joe SchneiderFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- InvestorPlace•3 days ago
Dow Jones Today: A Typical Summer Friday
Interestingly, June 21 marks the official start of summer, and the summer months often bring lethargy in the equity markets, particularly on Fridays. That was the case today as stocks, broadly speaking, were mostly listless.Source: Shutterstock To close the week, the S&P 500 fell a scant 0.13%, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.24%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also lost 0.13%. Long-term investors can find some solace on the day of the summer solstice with an article in Barron's today indicating Dow 30,000 could arrive sooner than expected."To stick with our 2025 forecast now would be to suggest that stocks over the next 5½ years will climb just 2.1% a year, plus dividends," according to Barron's. "It's possible, but pessimistic. The Dow could reach 30,000 much sooner than 2025."InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading TipsThe article indicates it is possible the Dow sees 30,000 sometime in 2021, a bullish forecast considering the blue-chip index closed around 26,800 today.That is a long-term forecast. Over the near-term, the Federal Reserve will likely dominate the conversation and that is not surprising. For investors hoping for rate cut this year, good news: Fed funds traders bet on such a move in record fashion this week, according to CNBC. Some Mild WinnersBy the end of the day, just two of the 30 Dow Jones stocks were sporting gains of 1% or more. The clear powerhouse was UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH), which gained 1.82% on new that it is acquiring health-care payments provider Equian LLC for $3.2 billion. * The 7 Best Dow Jones Stocks to Buy for the Rest of 2019 That is a drop in the bucket for UnitedHealth, which has a market capitalization of $240 billion and a stellar return for Equian's private equity owner New Mountain, which purchased the company four years ago for just $225 million.Defensive names have been getting some attention here in recent weeks and with good reason. Today, Dow component Walmart (NYSE:WMT), on essentially no news to merit a move like this, jump 0.73% to hit an all-time high. The largest U.S. retailer is up almost 20% year-to-date.Pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) added 0.88% after the European Commission approved the company's TALZENNA treatment for breast cancer patients. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the treatment last October."We are thrilled that we can now offer these patients in Europe, who are often diagnosed at a younger age and have limited treatment options, an effective, once-daily, alternative treatment to chemotherapy," said Pfizer in a statement.Staying in the blue-chip pharmaceuticals space, Merck & Co. (NYSE:MRK) closed modestly lower, but three analysts raised price targets on the stock to $90, $95 and $96, respectively. In either case, that is some decent upside from Merck's Friday close around $84.50. Bottom Line on the Dow Jones TodayWith all the talk about a potential rate cut, investors should not forget that second-quarter earnings season will soon be here. While glum earnings may be baked into the market at current levels, investors should still expect some less-than-positive sentiment around the second-quarter numbers."As of today, the estimated earnings decline for the second quarter for the S&P 500 stands at -2.6%," said FactSet in a note out Friday. "If -2.6% is the actual earnings decline for the quarter, it will mark the first time the index has reported two straight quarters of year-over-year declines in earnings since Q1 2016 and Q2 2016. It will also mark the largest year-over-year decline in earnings since Q2 2016 (-3.2%)."Unfortunately, the same note indicates analysts are ratcheting down third-quarter estimates with the energy and technology sectors looking like the worst offenders.As of this writing, Todd Shriber did not own any of the aforementioned securities. More From InvestorPlace * 2 Toxic Pot Stocks You Should Avoid * The 7 Best Dow Jones Stocks to Buy for the Rest of 2019 * 5 Boring Stocks to Buy This Summer * 7 S&P 500 Stocks to Buy With Little Debt and Lots of Profits Compare Brokers The post Dow Jones Today: A Typical Summer Friday appeared first on InvestorPlace.
- ABC News Videos•2 days ago
Deadly motorcycle crash in northern New Hampshire
Plus, an inferno erupts outside a Walmart in Philadelphia; arrest made in the murder of a Virginia dentist; Penafiel water bottles pulled from shelves for containing high level of arsenic.
- Yahoo Finance Video•3 days ago
59% of US households are Amazon Prime members: RBC
More than half of America is on Amazon Prime. That's just one of the findings of RBC's 7th annual U.S. online shopping survey, which found that Amazon is the clear leader in e-commerce, though Walmart continues to show traction. The Final Round panel reacts.
